Google has asked the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to have a look at the bitstream specification for its VP8 video compression algorithm. Google said that the move was not a move towards standardization but had the aim of creating a definitive reference for the technology.

IETF publishes Request For Comment (RFC) memoranda, used to describe various technologies used on the Internet. The draft does not describe the codec and it admits that there might be differences between the draft and the reference source code published by Google.

This would make it difficult to get the everything nicely standardised, but would mean that the search engine outfit wants a better specification that allows implementers to support VP8 without having to make reference to thousands of lines of source code. However it does show that Google is putting a lot of weight behind V8.